Put Away Childish Things
by Carlanime
Summary: The third episode for an imaginary season three. Joan is confused about her relationship with Ryan, and her family have their own problems. Can she trust her friends to help?
1. Chapter 1

Lilly and Helen sat in the deserted church. "Thanks for squeezing me in," Helen said. "Everyone else in the family is busy tonight, and I just felt too restless to stay at home alone. Besides, I like being here—it kind of feels like we're reclaiming the church just by using it."

Lilly nodded. "So, okay," she began. "The next sacrament we have to discuss is—oh." Her face froze slightly. "Marriage." She snorted slightly. "Well. You know more about that than I do, and really: what is there to say about it anyway? So let's skip it and move on to—"

"Wait a minute," Helen interrupted. "I don't think we should skip it—there are a lot of interesting questions about marriage as a sacrament."

"Name one," said Lilly dryly.

Helen peered at her face and then laughed slightly. "Oh my God," she said. "I don't believe this. You're uncomfortable discussing marriage with me?"

Lilly looked even more uncomfortable. "It's just that, well," she hedged. "You know." Helen looked blank. "I haven't exactly been playing a winning game in the great marriage sweepstakes," Lilly explained irritably. "Until recently." For half a second Helen continued to look blank, and then her eyes widened. "Oh my God," she repeated. "Do you think…I mean…you and Kevin?"

"I don't know," Lilly snapped, hostile and embarrassed. "And I don't want to jinx it by talking about it," she added more gently.

Helen, after a moment's startled silence, found herself feeling sympathetic. "How about if we discuss it in abstract terms?" she suggested, trying to hide a smile.

"Abstract is good," Lilly agreed. "The abstract-er, the better."

_meanwhile_

The shower did wake Joan up a bit. In fact, it woke her up enough that the weirdness of the whole situation was beginning to creep her out. She got dressed quickly, then lingered over combing her hair. There was no hair dryer, so she towel-dried it as well as possible. Eventually she'd combed out every tangle, even the imaginary ones, and had to leave the bathroom.

"Ah, good," said Ryan when she re-entered his living room, as casually as if she dropped by his place to shower every day. He set a plate of pasta on the coffee table with a flourish, then bowed. "Dinner is served," he said. Joan wondered if he was making fun of her.

"You don't eat in the dining room?" she asked. "I had you figured as a dining room type of guy."

He shrugged. "I thought the couch would be…cosier," he said, and Joan's stomach jolted nervously.

"now all that's missing is the wine," Ryan said, and stepped into the kitchen.

"Okay, God?" Joan muttered under her breath. "This is the one time when I'd welcome an appearance. Seriously. Help?" She spun around at the sound of footsteps, but of course it was just Ryan. "Oh, it's you," she said, too disappointed to notice how odd that sounded.

Ryan looked at her knowingly. "I'm the only one here, Joan," he said patiently.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** The characters and settings of Joan of Arcadia do not belong to me, and no profit is being made from this fanfic.

**Dedication:** This is for everyone here at ffn who took the time to read and review my stories. I really appreciate it, more then I can adequately express.

"So the purpose of marriage," Lilly was saying, "is for the couple to be a visible example of the presence of God, in a way they can't by themselves."

"Aha," said Helen, absently.

"By giving themselves, each to the other, exclusively—by, as they say, giving themselves as "irreplaceable and unsubstitutional people"—they're manifesting important truths about God."

"Yes," Helen agreed, still sounding distracted.

"Like, for example, that God loves us," Lilly went on. "and that, in God's eyes, we really are "irreplaceable and unsubstitutional"—every single one of us." She looked at Helen, who didn't respond. "And how He plans to crush us like bugs, any second now, and make some sort of sandwiches out of the remains," Lilly continued, in exactly the same tone.

"Uh huh," Helen nodded, and Lilly gave up.

"Okay, Helen? You seem a little distracted this evening. Is there something on your mind?"

_meanwhile_

In spite of her nervousness, Joan found herself finishing off the plate of pasta Ryan had prepared for her. It was unexpectedly delicious. So was the wine, when she remembered to pause and take a sip of it.

"I can't believe I'm this hungry," she admitted to Ryan. "It's sort of awful. I mean, with Bonnie in the hospital and everything. It's weird that I even have an appetite, after hanging around a hospital all day."

"It isn't weird at all," said Ryan gently, reaching to take the plate away from her. Irrationally, Joan clung to it for a minute, so he practically had to pry her fingers off. "It's a perfectly normal reaction. When we're forced to confront death or injury, we react by throwing ourselves into activities that remind us we're alive. Even when you feel numb from shock or grief, your body reminds you of the basic things you need: food, sleep, closeness with other human beings."

Joan felt exposed without the plate to shield her. She picked up her wineglass, and Ryan smiled, perhaps guessing that she was looking for something else to hide behind.

"You sound like you know what you're talking about," Joan observed.

_meanwhile_

"Joan's having dinner with a boy," said Helen.

"Oh," said Lilly, looking mildly alarmed.

"Not a boy, really," Helen continued. "A young man."

"Ah," said Lilly, looking even more alarmed.

"And I'm worried about what his intentions are," Helen said, and then laughed at herself a little. "Which, I realize, sounds ridiculously old-fashioned. But still."

"I can't stress enough," said Lilly, "how wrong a person I am to be having this conversation with. Just about the only thing I know less about than dating? Would be parenting."

"That's the thing. It's not so much the "dating" issues," Helen said, frowning in perplexity. "There's something…else. Something I can't explain, but it worries me."

Lilly leaned forward, looking interested. "What sort of something else?"

Helen continued to look puzzled. "My gut feeling is that he isn't—well, isn't evil. I don't get that sort of vibe from him, exactly. But there's something almost threatening about him, and I'm worried. I keep thinking I'm missing something. What if I was wrong to think he was a good person?"

Lilly shrugged. "Well, that's your department, isn't it?"

Helen looked mildly exasperated. "I know you're not a parent," she said, "but I thought you might, as my spiritual advisor, have something helpful to say."

"But I am," Lilly explained. "I mean, really: _it's your department_. Your charism, your gift, is called "discernment of spirits" for a reason, Helen. It isn't just some "I see dead people" thing. It's the ability to discern spirits, and know whether they originate from good or from evil. So if he doesn't feel evil to you, well, he probably isn't evil."

Helen said, sounding amazed, "That's…that's a bigger gift than I'd realized."

Lilly nodded, but looked slightly annoyed. "Yes, it's considered a highly valuable gift for a spiritual advisor, for instance," she said bitterly. "Not that I'm, you know, complaining or anything."

_meanwhile_

Ryan shrugged. "When I was fourteen, and my parents divorced, I reacted the same way, just as though I were grieving. I threw myself into any activity that offered distraction: parties, drugs, sex. All I wanted at the time was to turn away from the spectacle of my parents destroying our family."

"And away from God," Joan guessed shrewdly.

"Interference from the person responsible for creating all this chaos?" said Ryan. "Not needed, thanks. And the nagging efforts to get me to appreciate the random, horrible events the universe throws at us were a waste of time. Just look at this world, Joan. I've been seeing it clearly since I was fourteen, and I'm not impressed. I'm just smart enough to have realized how to play the game, and how to take advantage of my strengths."

"Why are you telling me all this?" Joan asked.

"I'm not sure myself," he answered, a bit too smoothly to be convincing. "I just know that there's no one else in the world like you, Joan. You're unique. And you're probably the only person in the world who understands me."

Joan wondered if that was true, or if he was trying to manipulate her somehow. She also realized that something—maybe the wine—was making her feel dizzy.

Ryan slid along the couch to sit closer to her, removing the empty wineglass from her hand and draping one arm across her shoulders. "And I'm the only one who really understands you, Joan," he said, and put one finger across her lips to silence her before she could argue. "You know it's true. I bet you haven't been able to tell a single one of your friends and family what you really are."

"Face it, Joan," he said. "We need each other. You want there to be some meaning to life? You think God's interference in our lives has some purpose? Fine: try this for a purpose. It cut us off from everyone else, and it brought us together."

His grip on her tightened, pulling her close, and he bent his face to lick her neck, delicately, as though she were something to be savoured. "And I know how to make you feel alive, Joan," he whispered, and she shivered under his touch.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's note:** As some of you have probably realized, I'm on vacation—I've been in France for the past few weeks, and I won't be home again until mid-August. This makes updating somewhat difficult (writing the story is easy, but getting computer time and figuring out this keyboard are less easy). Anyway, sorry to those of you who are waiting on updates! I'm honestly not trying to drive you nuts.

Luke and Grace were lying on a blanket spread on the grass—lying on their backs, the tops of their heads touching, so that their bodies formed one long, straight line. This way, when one of them pointed to a constellation, it was easy for the other to align their view and see what they were meant to see.

Just now, neither of them was pointing at anything. They lay, Luke with his hands behind his head, Grace with hers folded on her stomach, and they just looked into the heavens, their vision in perfect alignment.

"It's all so huge," Grace said softly. "I feel as though I could fall off the earth and float away."

Luke nodded carefully, so they wouldn't bang skulls.

"Does it make you feel insignificant?" Grace asked. "I mean, we're so small."

"Smallness is relative," Luke shrugged. "Atoms are small, but they're significant—look at the energy if you split one."

"But we're not atoms," Grace said dryly.

"We're still not insignificant," Luke said confidently.

"Geek," Grace said, but affectionately. "How can you know that? How can you know we matter?"

"We matter to each other," Luke pointed out. "That's something."

"Yeah," Grace said, "but relationships are scary enough without making them any more significant than they have to be. I mean, way to hand people the power to hurt you. I'd rather have some kind of significance that doesn't depend on anyone else."

"That's not how the universe is constructed," Luke argued. "It's not a bunch of components acting independently of one another, Grace. Every part is interconnected."

"What's wrong with wanting to be independent?" Grace countered.

"It's just not how the universe works," Luke said. "Look at Thomas Etter's definition of connectivity. He says that when we increase connectivity, when we add connections, things lose some part of their independence. When we break connections, things become more independent. Humans behave the same way as anything else: we trade off little bits of our independence to form connections, sure, but that's not a bad thing. It's just how it works."

_meanwhile_

Joan was crushed tightly against Ryan, her own arms wrapped around him, clinging to him as they kissed. A small part of her brain kept trying to get her attention by flashing messages like 'I can't believe I'm doing this' and 'I must be out of my mind.' These warnings, though, were far outnumbered by the sheer sensory input—the taste of Ryan, the smell of him, the heat of his body, the even more incredible heat pulsing through her own body in waves. She felt dizzy, as though she were reeling helplessly through a dream. None of this felt quite real.

Joan's internal censor had gone on vacation. Hell, maybe it was a permanent vacation: maybe her conscience had quit, and found something more fun to do. Ryan's hands eased under her shirt, first running across her back in ways that gave her cold-shivers, then slipping confidently around to cup her breasts, his fingers lightly tracing her nipples, making them shiver to attention. And not once did she think, let alone say, 'stop.' Partly it was just that it felt too incredible to be _real_; she almost didn't believe it was actually happening. But mostly? Mostly it felt too good to stop. She was drowning in sensations, just feeling and reacting, carried away by the flow, never once reaching for the logical thoughts that could have stopped the torrent and let her pull herself aground: thoughts about implications, consequences, outcomes. Those rational, responsible thoughts had always been within her grasp when she was with Adam. Where were they now?

She realized, with a gasp of shock, that she'd pushed her own hands under Ryan's shirt so she could run her hands eagerly over the contours of his chest and shoulders. By now, too, he was unbuttoning her shirt with one practiced hand, easily pushing it from her shoulders and lifting her arms, one at a time, to free them from the fabric. Her already-unclasped bra followed her shirt to the floor.

He took her hands in his and stood up. "let's move into my bedroom," he said. "We'll be more comfortable there." He smiled at her dazed expression and her huge, dazzled-looking pupils. "Unless," he added, "you're afraid?"

Joan started to shake her head, but stopped quickly—it made the room spin slightly. "I'm not afraid of you," she said defiantly, but her tongue tripped slightly over the words, and Ryan laughed at her, quietly. "Anyway I don't believe you," she said. "I don't believe you're nearly as cold and uncaring as you pretend to be."

He pulled her to her feet and led her firmly to his room. "Joan, my pet," he told her, "you go right ahead and believe whatever you need to get you through the night." But the arm he placed around her waist to steady her held her gently, almost reverently, in spite of the forced harshness of his words.

_meanwhile_

"Oh, I don't know," Helen said, exasperated by her inability to pin down what she was feeling. "Maybe we should just get back to discussing marriage."

"Okay," Lilly said. "So. Marriage is a sacrament as long as both the spouses are giving themselves, and accepting each other, as irreplaceable individuals."

"What if one partner is sure about their faith?" Helen asked tentatively.

Lilly shook her head. "Believe it or not, that doesn't matter," she said. "Even if one partner isn't Catholic, or is a heretic, the marriage is still a sacrament as long as both partners were baptized at some point."

Helen thought this over. "That seems strange," she said. "It makes it sound as though the believing partner would be bearing the burden of faith for both of them, somehow."

Lilly shrugged. "Perhaps that's the point," she said. "Look at it the other way around: maybe doubt is just too big a burden to bear alone."


	4. Chapter 4

Joan was in Ryan's room, on Ryan's bed. His hands were touching her, stroking her, and every inch of skin that his hands moved across felt enflamed. He kissed her, again and again, not just on her lips but also on her neck, and her shoulders, and along her collarbones, and finally he kissed the soft, smooth skin of her breasts. She kissed him back, too, but mostly just on the lips or ears or neck—she felt shy of the bare skin of his chest, although she had managed to run her hands across it, tentatively, marveling at the heat of his skin and the hardness of his muscles.

Now he flicked a warm tongue across one of her nipples, nearly causing her to cry out with surprise and, yes, with desire. She'd never felt so excited by anyone, anything. She'd never felt so reckless.

At that moment he lifted his head, moving up the bed slightly so they were face to face. She lifted her head to kiss him, and he kissed her back, but then put one hand flat against her chest and gently pushed her back down onto the bed. He looked into her eyes and said three words, softly: "We should wait."

She blinked up at him for a moment, not understanding what he'd said--well, not so much not understanding it as not believing it, really. "You—what?" she said, and then the embarrassment hit her full on, and she wished she could turn invisible, or sink through the floor, or possibly just _die_ of embarrassment and be done with it. She tore her eyes from his face and gazed around the room, trying to find something else to focus on, trying to keep the tears out of her eyes. "You don't want to," she added, bluntly, and it wasn't a question, just a restatement of the obvious for clarification purposes.

To her annoyance he laughed, and then caught her chin and turned her head back to face him. "I do want to, very much," he said, and he growled the last two words in a way that made her heart pound with fear and desire at the same time. "I could just eat you up," he added, and if it was a joke it didn't quite work, because it was a little bit—okay, quite a lot, actually—creepy. "But, Joan," he said, " I don't want to just consume you. I want to savor you. There's no one else in the world like you, except for me, and that makes you too much pf a rarity to waste. So I can't, I won't, take you like this, when you've been drinking, when you're so dazed you might not even remember this clearly. When I take you, I want you with me and aware of me, fully. So we're going to wait, Joan." He leaned in closer, and kissed her softly, but this time she didn't kiss back. "And you'll come back to me, won't you?" he said, the smallest note of amusement in his voice. Joan heard it, and understood it, but she still answered him honestly: she might seem like an over-eager kid to him, but she had too much pride to be cowed into lying about it. Besides, what good would that do? He could tell she wanted to come back.

"Yes," she said, so calmly he looked impressed. "I'll come back. I'm not finished with you."

The next day Adam showed up at Grace's house, early. "I'm trying to cut you some slack," she told him testily, clutching a coffee mug with both hands, "on account of the recent multiple traumatic events. The Joan thing, the Bonnie thing: that gets you some sympathy. But dude, there is so much wrong with this. This is my house, Rowe. Also? This is morning. I am not good with mornings."

"I need your help," Adam said, so quietly and honestly that Grace was silenced. Concern showed in her eyes, even though she carefully looked away to allow him some unstared-at privacy for this conversation. He looked so tired, so worn down, that staring at him seemed invasive.

"It's about," he began, and then stopped. He tried again. "Jane was right, about Bonnie. She shouldn't have to be all alone in the dark. But," he hesitated, and then blurted, "but I don't want to be the one sitting there by her bed, day after day. I'm not Bonnie's boyfriend, Grace. I never was. And I'm not pining for her that way. Sitting there every day, as if I were loyal to her, as if I was waiting for her: that would be a lie. Maybe that makes me a horrible person. Maybe I'm supposed to want to sit there with her. But I don't, and this situation is messed up enough without me giving Bonnie more reason to imagine I feel something about her that I don't."

"What would you like me to do?" Grace asked. There was no reproach in her voice.

"Could you," Adam waved his hands helplessly, "kind of talk to the others, and arrange it so someone visits her every day? It doesn't have to be a big deal, maybe just an hour each afternoon. Just so she's not left all alone. Maybe they could read to her or something."

"So basically, you're asking me to force other people to do a good deed?" Grace asked.

"Yeah," Adam admitted, and Grace smiled.

"Cool," she said. "That I can handle. Consider the posse summoned."

As he made his way down to the sidewalk Grace yelled after him, "Hey! Just because I'm being nice about it doesn't mean you don't owe me, big time. And I _will_ collect, Rowe. Count on it."

Adam smiled back at her, his old smile, vulnerable but open. "I know you will," he said.

Luke and Glynis and Friedman were easy, agreeing to the plan over the phone so readily that Grace wondered, irritably, how she'd fallen in with such a pack of do-gooders. Joan she left until last, and she decided to discuss it with her in person. It was a huge imposition, in Grace's opinion, to ask a girl to sign up for a shift guarding the bed of some chick who had, basically, ruined her relationship with a guy she loved. Grace wanted to be able to see Joan's face, so she'd know Joan wasn't just agreeing out of guilt or something.

But Joan agreed readily too, so readily that Grace was puzzled, and wound up nagging her with questions, trying to goad her out of whatever was preoccupying her and into some display of emotion. "You're sure you're okay with this?" Grace asked, for at least the third time, and Joan took her by the shoulders and looked directly at her.

"Grace," she said, "I'm okay with this. I'm sure. I'm sure that I'm sure. Okay? I've moved on."

Grace had a flash of insight. "You like someone else," she guessed shrewdly. "Girardi! Who is it? Why have you been hiding this? Not that I _care_," she added, "and you should know the whole 'girl talk' thing is not my scene, but still."

Joan looked at her for a moment. "You really want to know the truth?" she asked finally.

"Yeah," Grace said, but there was something so strange about the look on Joan's face that she was suddenly uncertain. Was Joan's truth something she really wanted to hear? Grace wondered, feeling goose bumps rise on her arms.

"Okay," said Joan. "Okay. Well, first of all, the guy—the guy is Ryan Hunter."

Grace was floored, totally and completely. "What?" she said. "Why? What can you possibly have in common?"

Joan said, "We've both seen God. I mean, talked to God. As in actual conversations, where God talks back." She giggled nervously. Grace stared back silently, looking increasingly concerned. "As opposed to now, I mean," Joan went on, "where I'm the only one talking. Grace? Some input, please? What are you thinking?"

"What am I thinking?" Grace repeated. "I'm thinking you've decided Lyme Disease is so last year, and full-blown schizophrenia is the new black. My God, Girardi, exactly how worried should I be? Have you been having this problem for long?"

"Since last year," Joan admitted.

Grace shook her head, looking stunned, and then a look of anger crossed her face. "And this—this Hunter guy—he's been encouraging you in this? He didn't suggest you get help or anything?"

Joan shook her head. "Well, no, but—"

Grace exploded. "That creep! That utter asshole! Why would he do that? Why would he feed your delusion unless—that son of a—Joan, he's taking advantage of you."

"No," Joan protested, "it's not like that. He sees Him too, I know he does." But for the first time she sounded doubtful.


	5. Chapter 5

When Luke stepped out of his house Grace was waiting for him. "Hey," he said, surprised to see her.

"We need to talk," she informed him.

He looked alarmed. "What did I do?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said impatiently. "Nothing that I know of, anyway. We need to talk about your sister. I think she's on the brink of some sort of major freakout."

i meanwhile /i 

When Bonnie opened her eyes, there was a strange girl sitting beside her hospital bed, leafing through a fashion magazine. "Aw, no: the fall fashions are really cute," the girl said. "How is it fair that I'm missing these?"

"Who are you?" Bonnie asked, and the girl looked up.

"Oh, I'm Judith," she said cheerfully. "Joan's friend."

"Joan's friend?" Bonnie repeated. "Then why are you here?"

"It's slightly complicated," Judith said cheerfully, "but the gist of it is, Joan felt bad about you lying here all alone, so she talked a bunch of her friends into sitting beside you."

"So you're some friend of Joan Girardi's that's here on some kind of pity visit?" Bonnie said coldly.

"Not quite," Judith said. "You see, I didn't get asked to do a shift. I'm not really one of Joan's crowd anymore."

"You had a fight?" Bonnie asked.

"Oh, no," Judith assured her. "I died."

i meanwhile /i 

Glynis had just taken up position in the uncomfortable chair next to Bonnie's bed when Friedman appeared in the doorway. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"This is when I'm supposed to be here," she snapped. "We arranged it yesterday."

"Are you sure?" he asked, strolling into the room and pulling up a chair. "Because I could have sworn it was my shift. Well, I guess you're in luck: today your life benefits from an extra dose of Friedman."

Glynis rolled her eyes and didn't bother answering, but once he'd focussed his attention on Bonnie she stole a few curious glances at him. What was this all about?

"Her eyes are moving a lot," Friedman observed. "Do you think that means she's dreaming?"

i meanwhile /i 

"You died?" Bonnie repeated, looking horrified. Judith nodded, looking slightly smug. "You mean you're dead?" Judith nodded again. Bonnie sat up. "You mean I'm dead?" she asked shrilly.

"Oh, no," said Judith. "No, you, for some reason, are alive."

"Then why can I see you?" Bonnie asked suspiciously.

Judith shrugged. "How should I know? What am I, an expert on near-death experiences? If it's any help, I'm not really in your room right now—I'm in your head. You're still unconscious, Bonnie. I'm just doing my bit to keep you from being alone in the dark—and believe me, if it weren't for Joan, I wouldn't be here. I just felt that, since the others were all doing their part, I should too."

"So Joan's other friends are taking turns sitting with me?" Bonnie asked, sounding more interested.

"Yup," said Judith. "Even as we speak, you're not alone. Kind of creepy, isn't it?"

"Including Adam?" Bonnie persisted.

"No," said Judith firmly. "Not including Adam. Adam opted out. Could you maybe try thinking with some other part of your anatomy?"

"That's not fair," Bonnie snapped at her.

"It's not i nice /i ," Judith corrected her, "but it's perfectly fair. You slept with a guy who you knew had a girlfriend. Now, that's not totally your fault, since obviously it was his choice too, but still: your half of that decision sucked, and if you'd made a different choice, you wouldn't be here."

"Is this the big moral lesson?" Bonnie sneered. "If I hadn't made a bad choice, my self-esteem would have been higher and I wouldn't have tried to off myself?"

"It's a bit more direct than that," Judith told her. "Remember talking to a guy in Ms. Girardi's office?"

"Why do you even know about that?" Bonnie asked, looking startled.

"I've been keeping an eye on him," Judith said. "He likes Joan, Bonnie, and I mean likes her a lot, in a restricted-movie kind of way, if you catch my drift."

"And this has what to do with me?" Bonnie asked, but by now she sounded more confused than hostile.

"You know how some guys like to express affection with gifts?" Judith said. "Well, Ryan Hunter isn't the candy-and-flowers type. He chose something a little more...exotic. You hurt Joan, Bonnie, and you made her angry. Luckily for you, she's too nice a person to get revenge, or to trash your reputation all over school, or whatever. Unluckily for you, the guy who has the hots for her isn't quite so nice. He saw you were close to the edge that day, so he pushed."

center end of episode three /center 


End file.
